


Torchlight

by KuroFae



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood and Gore, Death, F/F, Gamzee is. him., Gore, Kanaya has PTSD, Mental Illness, Murder, Nightmares, POV Rose Lalonde, POV Second Person, Weapons, mentions of other character deaths, multiple accounts actually, probably ooc as heckie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 22:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11195226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuroFae/pseuds/KuroFae
Summary: Kanaya was, both metaphorically and physically, your light in the dark. Before you met her, you were beginning to worry you would never meet anyone who made you feel, well, anything. Anything romantic, that is. You eventually built up a fear of being alone.Kanaya shattered that fear, and your lives meld together.You both have baggage, though, and hers turns out to be much heavier than yours.





	Torchlight

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case you missed it: major character death. Just saying.
> 
> I wrote this like 2 years ago and the dialogue is so awkward that I'm crying, but I'm sick of my account being empty. :') I'm love you all.
> 
> Uneditted, unbeta'd. If you catch any mistakes let me know! I haven't read Homestuck in quite a long time and this was written before it's ending.

Kanaya was, both metaphorically and physically, your light in the dark. Before you met her, you were beginning to worry you would never meet anyone who made you feel, well, anything. Anything romantic, that is. You eventually built up a fear of being alone, and when you shared it with your friends, no one seemed to be bothered by the same thing as you. They told you that you’d find love eventually; assured you that it wouldn’t last forever.

You felt more alone than ever.

And then the most amazing thing happened. You met Kanaya, and she seemed to heal you.

GA: I Too Feel A Sense Of Looming Loneliness  
GA: It May Be Caused By The Discord Among My Friends But I Feel Like It Goes Deeper Than That  
GA: Deeper Into Myself I Mean  
GA: Metaphorically  
GA: Had I Meant Literally  
GA: That Would Be Quite Terrifying

GA: I Don’t Feel Lonely Speaking To You Of Course  
GA: It’s Hard To Be Lonely In Such Spectacular Company

And you revelled in the glory of being happy, and knowing another being who felt incomplete without you.

You never would have described Kanaya as suffering from anything more than a bright skin complexion. She was a tad odd and a bit quiet, maybe, but she never seemed unhappy. She made you dresses, read to Dave, and spent hours speaking to Karkat in soft clicks and chirps of a language that you had learned to recognize as Alternian. She was welcoming, soft, and comforting, and you saw her as stable. Your light in the dark, your ‘matesprit’ as she put it, and your friend above all else.

You had been very, very wrong.

Not about her feelings for you - those were as real as she was, standing before you in the flesh. You were wrong about her being alright; about her being happy; about how well she was. You didn’t know of the dark shadows that crept at the corners of her mind. Kanaya was carrying baggage that neither of you could handle, despite how hard you tried.

You did not discover the fact all at once - you realized now there had been signs, ones that you chose to ignore. Soft sighs, claws digging into fabric at her sides, ears dropping a little further than normal, a lack of appetite, sleepless nights where she tossed next to you. Whispers slipping through lips and minds that you chose to ignore, gripping desperately to the perfect fantasy of a happy family you had thought you had. You tuned out your visions, and went against the truth your godhood was showing you.

But eventually, you had to be woken from your blissful ignorance and face harsh reality in the face. The reality that most of Kanaya’s family and friends were dead, the fact that she was a monster, the harsh truth that things were not all well, and that your girlfriend was suffering.

This awakening came in the form of many bouts of jade-tinted tears.

Your eyes slowly open and you’re rubbing your cheek, sleepily and unconsciously. This is the first of many nights you will be awoken like this. Pale light reaches your eyes, and you stare at the silhouette of your crumpled form on the wall, back lit by the light of Kanaya’s skin as you sleep turned away from her. Your mind is groggy, and you can’t figure out what woke you, until you bring your hand from your jaw and feel dampness there. Blinking in the low light, you slowly stare at your fingers until the translucent liquid is recognizably green. Panic flares through you, jolting you awake instantly. You whip around, calling her name, but settle almost instantly as you see she is unharmed, and almost as quickly slap hands over your mouth hoping you haven’t woken her. Her dark hair is spilling out from underneath her head in small halos, short strands sticking to her cheeks. Her eyes are struggling to remain the closed but your shout had stirred her. A few blinks and a yawn later, grey-green eyes are staring at you, and you murmur, “My apologies. You were crying and I mistook your tears for your blood.” Kanaya touches a slender finger to her eye, and brushes off the remaining tears before replying just as quietly. “Thank You For Your Concern, Rose, But I Assure You I Am Physically Unharmed.” A small smile, exchanged goodnights, an air of an unspoken agreement not to mention the tears again, and it was over - for the first time.

Many nights like that followed. You learn not to wake her. You learn that kisses to her cheeks and neck cause her to relax and snuggle closer. You learn to tiptoe around the nights the tears wake you up, and tread carefully in your sentences before you sleep. And so far, everything seems to work.

But then Kanaya Maryam starts having nightmares.

It is not her tears that wake you this time, it is the thrashing. You snap awake instantly as a clawed foot clips you squarely in the back of the knee and pain flares up your leg. You bolt upright in surprise, only to have a wrist snap across the bridge of your nose. You try to pin her down, try to pacify her, try to wake her up, but all your efforts only make her struggle harder, gasping and mumbling things she wanted to scream through tight lips. After minutes of wrestling and babbling and praying to gods you had never heard of; after minutes of tears and punches, she begins to still under your hands, and you see that you are shaking more than her now. The same murky green eyes blink up at you as they have so many nights before, still damp with tears. But now Kanaya has more than just tear streaks to wash away in the morning, and you too; your nose swells up and you can only limp on your right leg, and she has sickly green fingerprints etched into her skin. Kanaya sticks to her normal outfit, the one with the long sleeves, instead of the many dresses she had sewn. You are thankful for your class’ low hood for once in your life. Neither of you mention it outside of soft inhales and resigning exhales and the tension they inflict in the air.

Kanaya seemed to be alternating between crying and thrashing. Every 'night’, or at least what Dave had deemed as night, now that all of you but him had lost track of time, you wake up, as if it was a normal part of your routine. Which, you refuse to admit to yourself, it is. You wipe tears, plant kisses, hold, and whisper to Kanaya, trying to ignore the irony that your guiding light for this hell of a game is now the lost one, and you the beam. You let the thought turn absently in the back of your mind, but do not let it enter. You are still reluctant. You are still clinging like a child to the scraps of happiness that existed briefly after your union. You will need one more night to fully accept the reality; one night worse than the others.

You hope it does not come.

Naturally, it does.

You are sprawled out in her lap, Grimoire’s pages flung open over your knees. You are reliving old hobbies just as Kanaya is - she is tying colourful ribbons around small clay pots full with exotic foliage. You had been sitting here for at least an hour, and the long, strange words etched into the pages of your spell-book are beginning to blur in the harsh light of Kanaya’s arms.

“Kanaya? Are you almost finished? I’m beginning to feel a tad weary.”

Kanaya nods, “You Go Ahead. I Will Join You In A Minute. I’m Almost Finished This.”

You rise to your feet, yellow robes hitting your ankles and sweeping on the floor. Planting a kiss to her forehead, you do as she suggests, and saunter down a dark corridor until you reach a tiny room, that you and Kanaya had turned into a type of nest - a pile of knitting, scraps of fabric, and assorted pieces of both of your clothing. Random objects were lost in it; an old coffee cup, single sewing needles, candles. You had not turned down the idea of sleeping in a pile of Kanaya’s belongings initially like Dave had Terezi’s. You loved the way she smelled, of herbs and laundry and rain, and her clothes reeked of her. The trolls seemed to think that sleeping in piles of things was a normal thing to do, even when said piles were made if the most uncomfortable objects imaginable. Kanaya, thankfully, seemed to have some sort of concept of comfort. You nestle into the pile, burying your face into a one of your old shirts, and feeling your eyes grow heavy. As your thoughts wander into the border between consciousness and dreams, only minutes later, Kanaya joins you, cold hands grabbing yours, bare legs wrapping around your ankles. You barely process her presence, and she only knows that you are awake at all because of the deep breath that you exhale. You both settle.

Your dreams were made anew after you achieved godhood, and they helped you finally shake the tendrils of the insistent Gods of the Furthest Rim. Dark tentacles, purple eyes, and whispers in your head had been replaced with soft light, a tinkling voice that spoke of magical things, and more suns than you could count. You spent all of your unconscious moments here - in this dream reality of light. You can not remember the last time you stayed here for an entire night, and you miss it. Kanaya comes first, though, and you chastise yourself lightly as you float through bubbles of sound and gold. You slowly allow yourself to sink into a sitting position, and relax in the warmth and glow. Your eyes close, and you drift, suspended. Chiming floats lazily around you and summer breezes blow.

Someone screams.

Your eyes fly open. Everything is chaos, you can’t see anything even with Kanaya’s light, blindingly bright even from across the room. Your eardrums are pounding, your eyes sting, petrol scorches your nostrils as you inhale the scent of it. Laughter, not screaming, is tearing through the room, over the sound of a screeching chainsaw. You’re panicking, and even as you jump to your feet, you know instantly that everything is wrong; this isn’t a nightmare; you can’t help.

That isn’t going to stop you from trying of course. You try to scream her name and are greeted with a face full of blood, spraying across your face and into your open mouth. You spit indigo onto the ground, and it hits your feet, splattering your shoes. Chainsaw blades are spinning and the maniacal laughter stings your ears.

You blink.

_“What are you doing?”_

_Your voice echoes in your memory, calm and quiet. She looks up at you and smiles._

_“Oh, Just Some Clown Hunting.”_

She’s screaming at him, cursing and telling him to die and that he deserves to and that she hates him hates him hates him, her words slurring into one giant howl of anger. The Bard of Rage continues laughing, hands clutched around the blade embedded deep in his chest. Your hands are around her shoulders, trying to pull her off. She’s always been stronger than you, always faster and always angrier. You’re nothing but a mild distraction to her. The floor is wet under your bare feet, oozing between your toes as you shuffle around, dodging a swinging fist; a flying tooth. Trying trying _trying_ to save her the pain, the regret of this. She screams again. She should have killed him when she had the chance, she hates him how could he what did they do why Equius why Nepeta they were his _friends_ she’s going to _kill_ him! She raises the chainsaw above her head and you turn, eyes squeezing shut.

Warmth splatters up your back and the smell of copper hits your nose, soft flesh like rotten peaches sticking to your clothes, to the backs of your hands.

There’s silence.

A droplet, indigo, clinging to the edge of a chainsaw, falls to the floor.

Another.

A third.

Then Kanaya, dropping to her knees, a tube of lipstick covered in purple rolling away from her hands, clenched and shoved against the floor. Tears falling from her eyes in time with the blood crawling across the floor towards her, spreading out from the mass of organs and bone that used to be Gamzee Makara.

It takes you a minute to reach out to her.

The silence is broken with a stream of howling confessions, tales of magic wands and destroyed hopes and chainsaws meeting the flesh of boys. How much she regrets it, how many times she’s seen that glowing stick in her nightmares. How many times she’s relived it passing from her hand to his, and how many times she’s seen her Empress die. Her friend blinded. Her mother’s legacy, her purpose, destroyed. Over and over. Her fault.

Eventually her blabbering gives away to sobbing, heaving breaths and screaming, clinging to you.You’re the pillar. You’re the light. And all you do is let her cry.

She cries away the deaths of her friends. The ones caused by her hand, the ones not. A flood of guilt and regret and sadness are washed away on a torrent of green tears.

“It’s going to be alright. The worst is over now.”

She believes you. You’re her light in the dark. What reason does she have not to?

**Author's Note:**

> [Follow me on tumblr!](http://kuro-paladin.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Your pile should come with airbags](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11252097) by [Bobsled_Hostage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobsled_Hostage/pseuds/Bobsled_Hostage)




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